


With a Little Help (From my Friends)

by orphan_account



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23877754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Drew Gooden anxiously begins his freshman year at Lillian High School, when he meets Danny Gonzalez. A school celebrity. Things quickly escalate between the two of them when they begin to write music together. Drew's thankful to have another friend, but he might want just a little bit more...
Relationships: Danny Gonzalez/Drew Gooden
Kudos: 40





	1. Here Comes the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I'm really excited about this idea. I'm not sure how long it will be, I'm just going to roll with it as it goes. I'm hoping to consistently upload (at least three chapters a week) but who knows how long that's going to last. Feel free to comment ideas or suggestions for me. I hope you enjoy

Drew sank into his chair, slowly realizing that maybe his math class wasn’t as “freshman friendly” as the administrators told him it would be. Naturally, it was the pre-calculus course, but he assumed there would be other freshmen who surpassed the prerequisites. As older and taller students selected their seats, already catching up with each other, he realized this wasn’t the case. Drew didn’t realize he would feel so lonely in a school where he supposedly knew one-fourth of the students. And yet, here he was. The chair in the very back left corner provided Drew with enough visual range to scan everyone with his baby blue eyes, hoping to catch someone he recognized from middle school. Drew’s rising panic was only met by the bitter chime of the school’s one-minute warning bell, leaving him to conclude that everyone had already entered the classroom. A classroom where he knew himself to be the only underclassmen.  
Drew found himself losing hope, when one more student popped through the door, right as the final bell rang. This guy’s face was exceptionally young looking, with dusty pink cheeks, and bright blue eyes which danced around the classroom trying to find a spare desk. And his eyes landed right on the desk next to Drew. Oh no. Drew didn’t want anyone by him, especially not someone intimidating and older. But then he looked back at this new boy. There’s no way he’s an upperclassman. It will be alright. Drew repeated that like a mantra until the boy plopped next to him.

“Hi, I’m Danny!” he explained, with a rather cheery tone. His eyes seemed to be dancing with glee, inspecting Drew. Drew with his sharp edges and quiet appearance. Nothing like the brightness of the boy next to him.

“I’m Drew.”

“Nice to meet you, Drew. Are you new this year?”

“I guess you could say that. It’s my first year of high school, and first-year here.”

“No way. You can’t be a freshman in Pre-Calc. Do they even allow that?”

“Yeah, just have to pass a few tests. And what grade are you-” But Drew was cut off before he could ask the question.

“Good morning class, and welcome back to school. I’m sure you all know each other already, but just in case, we are going to play a short get to know you game before we go over the syllabus.”  
Get to know you games. Drew thought that ended in high school. No more tomfoolery or stupid things, just him, his best friend, and his dreams to be an engineer. And then Danny turned to him, a smile plastered wide on his face.

“I love get to know you games. It makes the first day back to school more bearable, don’t you think?”  
Drew knew he disagreed, but the positive energy flowing from Danny forced him to change his tune.

“Um, yeah, they’re fine.”

“Do you know what your fun fact is going to be?”

“We have to give a fun fact?”

“Yeah, weren’t you listening?” With that question Drew realized that, no, he hadn’t been. So he quickly turned his attention away from Danny back to the teacher. What was her name again? Something B?

“I’ll start. My name is Mrs. Vickson, but you can call me Mrs. V if that’s easier. I’ve been teaching at Lillian High for 12 years now, and my fun fact is that I lived in Hawaii my entire childhood.” Mrs. V took a triumphant pause after her introduction and then began to speak again. “Now, we’ll just go across the rows until everyone’s had a turn to share.”

And so it started. Bridgit, Junior, played water polo. Max, Senior, went to India. Grace, Junior, liked photography. And so on and so on. Drew found himself distracted by his own fear of sharing a fact, and by the bright smile of the boy next to him. Danny radiated this energy that he wished he could catch in a bottle, and store for when he felt down on himself. Maybe it was too early to be thinking that way about someone, Drew didn’t even know his last name, but almost everyone seemed to feel that way. People across the classroom would glance at him for approval, and he would flash a smile back, or give them a cute nod. Oh no. Did I just use the word “cute”? Not again. And right at that, Danny bumped him with his foot.

“Hey, it’s your turn next,” he whispered with a cheeky grin.

“Thanks.” Drew turned his attention away from Danny, and back to the student in front of him.

“Hi. I’m Lila. I’m a senior, and a cool fact about me is that I have pre-committed to the University of Florida to be on their cheer team.” Lila received her smiles and nods of approval, and then 31 pairs of eyes turned on Drew. He found himself feeling a little bit afraid and a little bit flustered. But he pressed on.

“Hi. Um. My name is Drew Gooden. I’m a freshman. And, uh, a cool fact about me is that I play the electric guitar.” ANd after Drew stuttered that out, the eyes moved down the row, and fell on Danny.

“I’m Danny Gonzalez. I’m a junior, and I have a pretty large YouTube following.” Danny flashed that bright smile at the class again, but this time everyone smiled back. _Oh. He’s a celebrity._

“Alright, thank you for participating, class. Now I’m going to pass out the syllabuses and go through them with you all.”  
Danny turned his head to Drew yet again and began to speak with a hushed tone.

“It’s cool that you play the electric guitar.”

“Thank you. It’s cool that you’re on YouTube.”

“I guess,” Danny began. “You know, I’ve been looking for someone to help me write the instrumentals to some songs I’ve been working on for my channel. Nothing big. Think about it and I’ll come find you during lunch.”

Drew wasn’t sure he wanted to. Wasn’t sure he wanted to spend time with this almost stranger. Wasn’t sure he wanted an upperclassman approaching him and his best (and admittedly only) friend during their lunchtime. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to help. But Danny’s energy was so bright, and he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to help him.


	2. help!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it took so long! I'm hoping to have more time to write this week. I hope you enjoy this installment :)

The rest of Pre-Calc passed fairly quickly, and so did Biology, and Human Geography. Every teacher did about the same thing: get to know you, syllabus, answer questions. Nothing interesting. And it stayed uninteresting until lunchtime. Lunchtime and Danny was coming for Drew’s answer and he still didn’t have one. Drew figured that he would talk out the problem and possible outcomes with his best friend before giving Danny an answer. That is if he could find him.

As Drew scanned the cafeteria he realized that he had grossly misjudged how many students were actually in attendance at the school. Sure, a study body of 2000 doesn’t seem so large, until you get a big chunk of them into the same room. Then it’s overwhelming. Loud theatre kids, sexually charged band kids, roughhousing athletes, every type of student was there. And they were all noticeable. Drew took a second to breathe before pulling his phone out of the pocket of his favorite pair of jeans and texting his friend.

_ I’m in the cafeteria. Where are you? _

_ sitting at a table. on the left of the entrance, probably 4 or 5 tables down. _

_ C u soon. _

_ yeah _

Drew counted the tables as he walked past.  _ One, two, three, four- _

“Drew!” His name caught his attention, and Drew swung his head around to find his friend waving at him.

“Kurtis!” and with that, he walked himself over, and plopped his red backpack down across from Kurtis, sitting down closely after it. Kurtis’s brown hair appeared extra curly, and he kept fiddling with the collar of his yellow polo shirt. 

“How’s the first day going?” Kurtis asked quickly after Drew’s arrival.

“It’s honestly pretty boring. But I didn’t expect to feel so intimidated. How about you?”

“It’s been awesome.” Kurtis’s eyes bouncing around with glee as he answered. “There are so many pretty girls here.”

“Is that what you’re choosing to focus on?”

“Well duh. Focusing on school is pretty boring. Besides, I need to know who to ask for homecoming when it comes down to it.”

“And not ask me?” Drew questioned, jokingly.

“If it comes down to it, I’ll ask you,” Kurtis replied with a joking smile.

“So nice to know that I’m the last resort.”

“Would you have it any other way.”

“Of course not.” The boys smiled at each other, happy to be in the company of one another while they could. Kurtis pulled out his lunch and began to eat rainbow Goldfish crackers out of a ziploc bag - a staple of Kurtis’s eating habits. “Hey, while we’re here can I talk to you something?”

“If this is about being your date to homecoming, the answer is no,” Kurtis said straightfaced, before giggling a little bit at his attempt to stay serious. Drew couldn’t help but smile, even though he was pretty worried about Danny coming up to him for an answer at any moment.

“Not this time. It’s actually about the guy I met-”

“Oh  **do** tell.”

“Well, his name is Danny and he’s in my math class and he asked for help writing music for his YouTube channel.”

“Is he cute?”

“I mean, I guess. If you’re into blue-eyed baby faced boys.”

“So yes?”

“Yeah,” Drew answered slightly dejected that Kurtis had caught onto his little crush so easily. But Kurtis had been through all of Drew’s crushes. Kurtis knew Drew’s type.

“Then I say do it.”

“But what if he’s a creep?”

“Did he seem like a creep?”

“No, but, he could be very good at hiding it.”

“I think you just don’t want him to know you have a crush on him.”

“I do  **not** have a crush on him. I just think he’s visually appealing.”

Kurtis didn’t completely believe Drew, but what was the point in arguing with him about that. “Have you looked at his YouTube channel?” Kurtis asked. “Like, is it the kind of content you’d want to put your name on?”

Drew mentally scolded himself for not even thinking about looking through Danny’s channel. “No, I haven’t. I think that’s your first intelligent comment of this entire conversation.”

“Shut up,” Kurtis joked while pulling out his phone. “What’s his channel name?”

“He didn’t say. Just try looking up his name.” Kurtis typed out ‘Danny’ into the YouTube search bar, but that was too vague. Too many channels appeared to determine which was Danny’s very quickly.

“What’s his last name?”

Drew fell upon a blank on his head. He was racking his brain for Danny’s last name. “You know I’m not great. Something with a ‘G’. Like Gonzaga or…” Drew closed his eyes to try and remember it as if shutting out visual stimuli would let him look back in time. 

_ “I play the electric guitar,” Drew remembered himself saying. And then “I’m Danny Gonzaga.” _

“Yeah, I remember it. It’s definitely Danny Gonzaga,” Drew told Kurtis with confidence.

“Okay, but I’m looking that up and no one with any remote following is appearing. Are you sure that’s it?”

“That’s what I remember.”

“I’m going to start spit-balling G last names, and you can tell me when you hear it, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s a good idea.”

“Alright. Gonzaga. Gonza. Gona. Gono. Goner. Gone. Go-”

“No-no-no. There is  **definitely** a z in the name somewhere.” 

Kurtis doubted this a little bit, considering how confident Drew was about the last name “Gonzaga”, but he shook his head and rolled with it. “Okay. How about Gonzolez. Gonzale-”

“That’s it! Danny Gonzalez!” Drew exclaimed before a voice from behind him rang out of the cafeteria.

“That’s my name! Don’t wear it out!” And suddenly. There he was. Danny Gonzalez. Danny Gonzalez looking for an answer from him. An answer he didn’t have. And Drew felt anxiety rising in his chest as he turned to face Danny.

“Oh hey, Danny.”

“Hey, Drew! Do you have that answer for me?”

“Well, I’ve thought about it but-” Drew was suddenly cut off by Kurtis, who had made a fascinating discovery.

“Woah! You have 250K on YouTube!”

Drew’s jaw gaped open slightly. That was a lot more than he expected when Danny had mentioned having a “following on YouTube.”

“Yes, I do! And I am thankful for every single one of them,” Danny answered with a radiant smile, as he walked over to the side of Drew and Kurtis’s table.

Kurtis leaned over to speak to Drew. “You should definitely help him.”

“I agree with…” Drew paused, waiting for Kurtis to share his name.

“Kurtis. Kurtis Conner.”

“I agree with Kurtis. I would really like your help. But I understand if you don’t want to give it. I mean, you barely know me, right?” Danny looked at Drew expectantly. Drew looked at Kurtis. Kurtis smiled at Drew. Kurtis smiled at Danny. Drew smiled at Danny.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll help you. When should we start?”

Danny absolutely screamed happiness, he seemed to glow again. “Meet me outside the theatre after school. I know a great place where we can work.”

“Wait, we’re starting  **today** ?” Drew questioned exasperated.

“Well, duh. I don’t want to waste any time.” Danny stated obviously. Then a few other students waved him over. “I’ll see you then!” Danny said cheerfully while parting Drew and Kurtis to join the group of upperclassmen. 

After a moment of confusion from Drew, Kurtis spoke again. “I understand why you’d have a crush on him. He’s pretty cute. No homo though.”

“Yeah. He is, isn’t he?” Then the reality of the situation hit Drew. “Kurtis. What am I going to do?”

Kurtis just shrugged at him as the lunch bell rang, prompting them to go to class.


End file.
